SriLankan Catering bags sixth environmental award

SriLankan Catering's story to protect the environment was rewarded again when President Mahinda Rajapaksa, presented the company with a Gold Award at the first ever National Green Awards.

This was the sixth environmental accolade won in a little over one year by the company.

Chairman of SriLankan Airlines and SriLankan Catering, Nishantha Wickremasinghe said: "SriLankan Catering has demonstrated to the world that a determined and well-planned conservation program can achieve wonders within a short time. We have proved that a 'Green' program can also achieve cost savings for a company, and that the two are mutually compatible. It doesn't cost money to be environmentally friendly.

SriLankan Catering's latest accolade was one of just six Golds from 27 awards presented at the National Green Awards on 23rd August at the BMICH, organised by the Central Environmental Authority. SriLankan Catering won in the category of Waste Management.

Chief Executive Officer of SriLankan Catering, Sarath Fernando said: 'We launched our conservation program from scratch in late 2009, achieved the ISO 14001:2004 standard for Best Environmental Practices within eight months, and won our first award four months later.

Although we didn't start our program with the aim of winning awards, we've gone from strength to strength and the dedication of our entire staff of 718 for conservation has been recognised by these six awards.' Only one week earlier, Prime Minister, D.M. Jayaratne presented SriLankan Catering with the National Energy Efficiency Gold Award 2011 in the Large Scale State Sector for the second consecutive year at the Vidulka Energy Week and Exhibition organised by the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority at the BMICH.